Since I was a child and mobile phones were not an option, I was used to play with some hand held CBs (I just remember they were huge with a big orange button as PTT on the front). Later on I started using ICOM IC-02E and IC-02AT followed by IC-H16T, IC-F30 and IC-F3 (apparently I was already an ICOM-MAN) on my father's job's repeater.

I started to study for my ham license, but since it sounded too hard for me, I soon abandoned the idea and chose the easy way: why should I have read about electronics to obtain an ham license when I could directly engage and eletronic engineer master degree and have it for free? Enjoying this great and smart idea that led me to annihilate myself on 30 exams instead of one, in 2009 I graduated and after 2 years more (yes because compiling the modules was sort of really fatiguing), I reached that damned post office and sent the apply.

Since I'm a unix system & network administrator, I was trying to make ham radio stuff marry tcp/ip networking. And here we go with my rig of hand helds:

• ICOM ID-51E
• ICOM ID-52E
• Yaesu FT-70D
• Yaesu FT-5D
• Anyone 878 UV Plus
• Tytera MD 380
• Baofeng DM 1801
• Baofeng DM 1701
• Various HotSpots (DSTAR, C4FM, DMR) & Linux servers for reflectors

And since I like modding:

• Quansheng UV K5

But as you know, every ham radio operator passes from at least a handfull of:

• Baofeng UV-5R
• Tidradio TD-H3
• Baofeng iBlack Pro Max
• Midland CT 790

Besides all, my favourite DigiMode is DSTAR: proably because ICOM is the only manifacturer I love (affidability, sensitivity, thickness,...), but it's a matter of tastes.